


we don't know how to rhyme (but damn we try)

by loveleee



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 3x01 tag, F/M, Fourth of July, Picnics, References to Drugs, Summer Sex, Summer Vibes, just ignore the fact that i'm basically posting this on halloween k?, set between Season 2 and Season 3, shitty parents, sort of canon compliant, sort of not, the usual for Riverdale tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 04:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16468514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveleee/pseuds/loveleee
Summary: Betty and Jughead celebrate the Fourth of July in Riverdale, one year later.(Spoilers for 3x01, kinda.)





	we don't know how to rhyme (but damn we try)

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the summer between the end of season 2 and the beginning of season 3.

For the third day in a row, Betty wakes up before her alarm.

Except today there isn’t even an alarm _to_ beat, she realizes as she stretches out her arm to tap the _off_ button. It’s the Fourth of July. She has the day off.

(“Honestly, honey, you should take the whole week,” Mrs. Andrews had said last Friday morning, taking a sip from a ceramic mug that turned out to be already empty. “Have some fun this summer.”

Betty had just laughed, and offered to refill her coffee, and tried not to feel hurt by the fact that she was apparently so inconsequential to Archie’s case that she could take a last-minute, five-day vacation two weeks before they were set to go to trial.)

She lays still while her mind runs through her morning routine. Get up, shower, dress, eat breakfast, brush teeth, put on makeup. Avoid Polly and Mom while doing so. Text with Veronica on the walk to the office if she’s working a morning shift; listen to a podcast if she’s not.

Veronica, she knows, is working today. She’d volunteered. “I don’t want all the other employees to think I’m some…some spoiled heiress, demanding special treatment,” she’d told Betty in a hushed tone during one of her fifteen-minute breaks, feet propped up on the pleather seat of the booth.

Betty had shrugged, swirling her straw through her milkshake. “They know you’re the owner, V. I really don’t think they’d care.”

Deep down, she thinks Veronica agrees. Betty gets it, though – Veronica’s trying to stay busy, just like she is. To occupy her eyes and her hands and her ears with the here and now, the things directly in front of her face, so her mind never has a chance to wander back to the things that came before, or the things that lie ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time Betty heads downstairs, fresh from the shower, Polly is feeding one of the twins at the kitchen table while their mother wraps a pie in plastic wrap. Alice nods at her. “Oh good, you’re ready.”

Betty stretches up onto her tiptoes, grabbing a box of cereal from the cabinet next to the fridge. “Ready for what?”

“The party,” Polly pipes up.

Betty sets the cereal onto the counter – Honey Nut Cheerios – and stares at her.

“That stuff’ll kill you.” Polly looks pointedly at the box.

“What party?” Betty asks, ignoring the dig, as she does all of Polly’s opinions on food, clothing, and personal grooming since her sister moved back into the house.

“At the Farm.” Alice puts one hand on her hip. “We’re leaving in five minutes, are you sure you want to wear your hair wet like that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Betty says shortly. She pulls open the fridge, grabbing a near-empty gallon of skim milk, and sniffs it. Despite the amount of time that Alice and Polly spend away at the Farm – despite the fact that their household is now short one member – Alice continues to buy the same quantity of groceries that she always has, the result being a lot more food that spoils before anyone can eat it. “I’m hanging out with Jug and the Serpents today.”

She turns to grab a bowl from another cabinet, and is almost certain she can _feel_ Polly’s eyes boring a hole into the back of her head.

“You said you would come.”

Betty snorts. “When?”

“At dinner the other night.” The baby at Polly’s breast begins to whimper – Betty thinks it’s Dagwood – and she softens her tone as she bounces him gently. “You said you’d come, and we _told_ Edgar you were coming.”

It takes Betty only a moment to remember: she’d been texting Kevin and Veronica under the table during dinner, the girls coaching Kevin through a tiff with Moose, who still refused to hold hands with Kevin in public even though all summer he’d been more than happy to trade blowjobs back and forth in private.

Polly had been droning on about some “life-changing” yoga class she was taking at the Farm, while Betty _mmhmm_ ’d and nodded in what she thought were all the right places. Apparently she’d accepted an invitation she hadn’t even realized was being extended.

Betty pours her cereal into the bowl, topping it off with what remains of the milk, and waits until she has a mouthful of half-chewed Cheerios to say, “I’m not going.”

Polly’s eyes narrow, her lips parting to speak when Dagwood lets out a sudden, tortured cry.

“For Christ’s sake, Elizabeth,” Alice hisses, as though Betty’s last-minute RSVP is what set him off. “Polly, take him out to the car. I’ll get Juniper out of her crib.”

Polly leaves, though not without shooting one final, icy glare in Betty’s direction first.

Betty watches her mother as she moves about the kitchen. She seems off – frazzled in a way that’s still deeply unsettling to Betty, though it’s been her modus operandi ever since the night Hal Cooper tried to murder them both.

For all her faults, Alice Cooper had run her household with the steady enthusiasm of a cruise ship captain for all sixteen-and-a-half years of Betty’s life. But for the last two months – last _six_ months, really, when “Chic” entered the picture – it’s felt like they somehow veered off course and ended up in the Bermuda Triangle.

“Mom.”

Alice pauses, pie plate in hand, and levels her daughter with a look of pure exasperation.

“You don’t have to go.” Betty glances towards the front door, keeping her voice low just in case. “You know that, right?”

Something unnamable shifts in her mother’s expression, but it’s gone almost as soon as Betty sees it.

“Wear sunblock,” she says. “And don’t you dare come home with a tattoo.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s early yet, too early to head across town to where the Serpents have set up camp, so Betty pulls out her battered copy of the America’s Test Kitchen book and flicks through it until a recipe catches her eye.

A few minutes after she’s slid the cake pan into the oven, her phone buzzes – a daily reminder to take her birth control pill. She swallows it down with a swig of water, but when her fingers curl around the bottle of Adderall pills she’s been taking in tandem for the last few weeks, she pauses.

It’s a holiday, she reasons. Today, she doesn’t have to focus. Doesn’t have to prove herself. Whatever she does today, it will have no bearing on what happens to Archie at the courthouse two weeks from now. Whatever the Serpents have planned for their picnic, it’ll be enough to distract her.

(And if it isn’t – Jughead’s pretty good at that, too.)

She drops the bottle into her purse, just in case.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She stops at the Andrews’ house before heading over to camp, knocking on the front door in the _rat-a-tat_ pattern they’d agreed on two months ago so they would know it was a friend coming to call, and not a reporter.

Archie answers the door, still dressed in his pajama pants, though it’s nearly noon.

“I’m heading over to the Serpents’ thing,” she says, lifting up the sheet cake she just baked, in case the prospect of hanging out with his best friends’ gang isn’t enough. “You sure you don’t want to come? Just for a little bit?”

He leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest. “Nah, I’m hanging out with Ronnie at Pop’s today. She said she’d give me free milkshakes.”

Archie grins – his boyish, sweet grin, the one that used to come so easily, and is now so rare it makes Betty’s heart twist at the sight of it.

“Maybe when her shift’s over you guys could meet up?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Archie glances over his shoulder. “I gotta take Vegas for a walk before I head over there – we could walk a couple blocks with you?”

Betty waits on the porch while Archie changes into street clothes and clips Vegas onto his leash. They head down the sidewalk together at a leisurely pace, and she can’t help but think of early mornings in school years past, backpacks slung over their shoulders, the easy, mindless chatter between them.

She hadn’t fully appreciated those moments when she was actually living them. So caught up in her own head – _does Archie notice I’m wearing different lip gloss today? Can he tell I curled my hair this morning?_ – and then, when romance was no longer on the table, so caught up in whatever else was happening in their lives. Murder. Drugs. Gangs. More murder.

“Me and my dad did some more work on the car yesterday,” he tells her, tugging lightly at Vegas’ leash when the dog stops to sniff at an empty soda can on the ground. “But he thinks we might’ve hit a wall with the engine. Maybe you could take a look at it this weekend?”

“Bringing in the big guns?” she teases. “Sure, I can do that.”

“Cool.” Archie aims a half-hearted kick at a rock on the sidewalk. “Ronnie wants me to help her pick out the cocktail menu for her speakeasy. Like I know anything about cocktails,” he adds fondly.

Betty bumps him lightly with the edge of the cake pan. “She wants to spend time with you.”

“I know. I do too.” He looks at her sidelong. “What about you and Jug? You good?”

“We’re good. Really good.”

“That’s good.”

Archie looks genuinely happy to hear it, and that makes her happy, too. Almost happy enough to ignore thought she can’t quite shake: that this may be the last time she ambles down this sidewalk with her best friend, who may never walk beside her through these streets again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When she reaches the campsite, there are a few dozen people milling about as usual, the key difference being that today they’ve traded in their leather and flannel for denim and flag-printed tank tops. The picnic tables are draped with colorful plastic tablecloths, and smoke rises from the fire pit, where a man she _thinks_ is named “Itchy” is manning the grill. Betty places her cake onto a table that’s already piled with packaged cookies and cut-up fruit, and sets off to find Jughead.

He’s not hard to track down. She finds him by the side of camp that borders the river, sitting cross-legged in a patch of grass, watching Fangs and Sweet Pea play some variation of cornhole that also appears to involve a lot of drinking.

“You’re not playing?” She plops onto the ground beside him without announcing herself, close enough that their upper arms press together. His skin feels overly warm, like he’s been sitting in the sun just a little too long.

“You know how I feel about sports.” Jughead leans over and kisses her, brief but sweet. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Betty rests her hand on his knee; such simple contact, but it already feels like her shoulders are lighter, her limbs looser, just sitting here beside him.

“Did Archie come?” He cranes his neck around, looking for a redhead somewhere behind them, and Betty shakes her head.

She tells him about her morning while they watch the increasingly contentious game of cornhole, but his gaze shifts to her face when she gets to the part about her mom and sister, a small frown creasing his forehead.

“Maybe you should just go with them sometime. It might get them off your back about it,” he suggests.

“What?” She pulls her hand from his leg. “No.”

“You’re not even curious?”

Betty makes a face. “Sure, but – they’ll probably…kidnap me, or brainwash me, or something. You’d never see me again.”

“I’ll go with you.” Jughead bumps his knee against her thigh. “I’ll borrow my dad’s truck. We can leave whenever we want.”

“So what you mean is _you’re_ curious.”

He shrugs, lips lifting into something of a smirk. “You got me.”

She can see it from his perspective, she really can. His encounters with her family have been minimal this summer. He’s seen the peasant tops her mother has swapped for her button-downs, the crystals her sister leaves littered across the coffee table, the mason jars full of loose-leaf tea that keep appearing on the kitchen counter.

What he hasn’t seen is the glazed look in her sister’s eyes when she talks about the Farm and its leader, Edgar Evernever. Or the split-second pause before Alice’s affirmation every time Polly punctuates one of her claims with, “Right, Mom?”

He’s seen the non-threatening, New Age, quirky things. But try as she might, Betty can’t seem to find the right words to describe the other things – the things that are starting to worry her.

She tugs a blade of grass from the earth, picking at it with her fingernails. “I don’t want to go, Jug.”

“Okay. You don’t have to.” He places his hand on her lower back, rubbing gently. “But if you change your mind, tell me. We can go together.”

Betty rests her head against his shoulder, already exhausted by the conversation. “Sure.”

It seems like he can tell. His hand moves from her back to her opposite shoulder, toying with the strap of her overalls. “You look cute in these,” he murmurs.

Fangs and Sweet Pea finally notice Betty’s presence then, and step towards them, Fangs a little unsteady on his feet. Sweet Pea nods at her. “Hey. You guys wanna play? Two-on-two?”

“I don’t know, can I do so without drinking a liter of beer at…” She checks her phone. “Twelve-thirty in the afternoon?”

“Yeah, if you wanna be _lame_.” Fangs punctuates his statement with a hiccup. Betty giggles.

“Count me out.” Jughead removes his arm from where it’s looped around Betty’s shoulders, and stands up. “I’m gonna get seconds. You get anything to eat yet?”

Betty shakes her head, accepting his outstretched hand as she clambers to her feet. She keeps her grip in his as they walk back to the mess area, threading their fingers together.

“Everything okay?” she asks softly, leaning up on her tiptoes to brush her lips just beside his ear.

“Yeah. I guess – I don’t know.” Jughead sighs, and squeezes her hand. “I don’t care if everyone wants to get drunk, I mean, I basically expected it, but…” He squeezes it again, harder this time. “My dad’s been hitting it a little hard this morning.”

Betty turns her head, squinting in the sunlight. “Where is he?”

“Just hanging out with some of the older guys.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I can’t figure out if it’s because he feels _guilty_? Because this all started a year ago and he’s like…I don’t know, trying to drown it all out?” He shakes his head. “But maybe he just doesn’t care.”

If FP is drinking himself to distraction, Betty can’t say she’d blame him. “Maybe you should ask him.”

Jughead is silent for so long she almost wonders if he even heard her. Finally he says, “I don’t know if I’d like the answer I’d get.”

She doesn’t, either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They reach the grill just as a fresh round of hot dogs are being served. (“Thanks, Scratchy,” Jughead says, and Betty is intensely grateful she hadn’t had a chance to address the man by what she _thought_ was his name.)

Paper plate in hand, Betty starts to head for the big circle of lawn chairs where most of the Serpents their age seem to be gathered. Three months ago, she never would have done so. She would’ve had one eye out during the entire party, waiting for someone to show up and sneer at her presence, question what a Northsider was doing at a Southside party, eating their food, stealing their seats.

But now? Now she belongs. She’s one of them – once he’d assumed the role of their leader, Jughead had wasted no time in making that clear. And while she knows there’s still a difference between being tolerated and being welcomed, the Serpents’ not-quite-grudging acceptance means more to her than she could’ve predicted.

So does the unofficial role he’s bestowed on her – _my queen_ – though so far it remains largely private, more of an understanding between the two of them than an actual position within the gang. It comes with no responsibilities, no expectations – just the promise that when he needs to talk something out, to work through a problem, she’ll be there. That he’ll do the same, for her.

Betty only makes it a few feet before she feels Jughead’s gentle hand at her elbow, steering her away from the group and towards a checkered blanket that’s been abandoned nearby in the shade of a maple tree.

She frowns. “You don’t want to eat with everyone?”

“Not today.”

They settle onto the blanket and eat in comfortable silence, Betty sneaking a chip from Jughead’s plate every now and then. When she’s done she stretches out on her side, opening her phone to the home screen. There’s a missed call from Polly – but no voicemail, so it can’t be important, probably just an attempt to bitch her out on the phone – and a notification from Instagram.

She opens the app. Cheryl’s posted a photo of herself and Jason as children – kindergarten age, if Betty had to guess – beaming up at the camera, dressed in matching white and blue. _Love you always, JJ_ , reads the caption, followed by a red heart emoji.

Betty taps the little heart below the corner of the photo, and then holds her phone out for Jughead to see. “Do you know where Cheryl and Toni are?”

He squints at the photo for a beat, then looks away. “Not a clue. Probably the West Coast by now.”

It’s been nearly four weeks since the evening Cheryl had sashayed into Pop’s, Toni on her heels, and announced that they would be hitting the road the next morning for a summer roadtrip across America on their bikes. Jughead had immediately launched into a lecture about why Cheryl was going to get herself killed – she’d both bought her motorcycle _and_ learned to ride it precisely six days ago, for starters – but Betty had tuned them out, and watched Toni as she watched Cheryl. The smaller girl stood with her arms crossed, a slight smile on her face, a softness in her eyes that Betty had only caught glimpses of before, and only when Toni’s gaze was directed at her girlfriend.

It’s still hard to wrap her mind around the idea that Toni Topaz – the focal point of so much of Betty’s anxiety this past year, who had made Betty’s stomach churn when she walked the halls of Riverdale High by Jughead’s side during those awful months when they were broken up – is head-over-heels in love with Cheryl Blossom.

“Poor Cheryl,” she murmurs, closing her phone. Maybe – just like Betty’s internship, and Veronica’s waitressing job – the road trip was Cheryl’s distraction. Maybe she’d known that she needed to put as many miles as she could between herself and the deep, winding river where it had all started one year ago, where she’d slipped beneath the water’s surface and emerged, gasping for breath, without her other half. 

Jughead lowers himself onto the blanket beside her, tucking one arm behind his head. “One year,” he says, letting out a long breath. “Do you remember what you were doing that day?”

She does, though probably not as clearly as those who had been in Riverdale at the time. On the last Fourth of July, she’d been in Los Angeles for her publishing internship. A few other interns who lived in the same apartment building together had hosted a party at the complex pool. One of them – a boy named Adam, from Michigan – had kissed her the weekend before, and she’d spent most of the party warring with herself over whether or not she wanted him to do it again.

At around four in the afternoon, waiting in line for the bathroom, she’d opened up Facebook on her phone to find her feed overwhelmed with posts about Jason.

She called Polly six times that night, but she never answered.

“I was at a pool party,” she tells him.

“Better than my day,” Jughead muses. “I spent half of it sitting around waiting for Archie to show up.”

Betty scoots over on the blanket, close enough to rest her head on the space between his shoulder and chest. They’d only talked about it once – a few days after they’d slept together for the first time, and promised to be honest with one another always, fingers tangled together, eyes blinking back tears – but she knows Jughead still feels hurt by what had happened last summer. Despite everything he and Archie have gone through since – despite Archie’s contrition, and Jughead’s forgiveness – the reminder of his lifelong best friend’s rejection still stings.

His arm folds around her back, hand coming to rest on her hip, and she closes her eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She’s just dozed off when she feels Jughead’s finger press gently into the small of her back, tracing slowly up her spine, light as a feather.

“You wanna get out of here?” he asks quietly. “We can go to the trailer. My dad’s not coming back anytime soon.”

Betty keeps her eyes shut, considering. In this moment, in this hazy state between sleep and waking with his words low in her ear, there is nothing in the world she wants more than to slip away with Jughead, and let him peel her clothes off.

She wrinkles her nose a little. “He might.”

“He won’t.”

He sounds unreasonably confident, considering who his father is, and how unpredictable he can be, particularly when he’s drinking. “How do you know?”

Jughead shrugs. “I might have… _implied_ that I would appreciate a few hours of privacy this afternoon.”

“Ew, Jug!” Betty pushes herself up on one elbow, suddenly awake. “You told your _dad_ that?”

“I just said it’s a weird day and we might be dealing with some stuff. It takes him forever to unlock the door when he’s drunk, anyway,” he mutters. “So we’ll have plenty of warning if he does show up.”

She twists, looking behind them to where most of the partygoers are still gathered, sitting in lawn chairs, playing beer pong. A few younger kids are running around, chasing each other with water guns. “Aren’t we being really anti-social?”

Jughead frowns. “If you don’t want to –”

“I _do_ want to.” Betty bumps her shoulder against his lightly. “I just feel like we’ve barely interacted with anyone all day. I thought you were looking forward to this.”

“I was.”

“So what’s wrong?”

He sighs, rubbing one hand over his face. “It’s my dad, and…some of the guys want to start selling weed again. And I keep saying no, and _they_ keep pushing back, and I just don’t want to fucking deal with it today.”

“Who?”

“Sweet Pea’s the most vocal about it.” Jughead shakes his head. “I know Toni agrees with me, but she’s off in the middle of fucking nowhere. And I _know_ it’s kind of hypocritical for one of the only people with actual, permanent shelter to say we don’t need the money that bad, but…” He shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. It’s just…it’s a lot.”

Betty sucks in a breath. She’s not completely naïve. She knows that the Serpents were drug dealers for many, many years, and that somewhere in the recesses of Penny Peabody’s office on the outskirts of town, there exists a hard drive with footage of her own boyfriend making one of their deliveries.

But she’d thought all that was over – gone with Penny herself.

“It is a lot,” she agrees.

(It’s not just a lot – it’s too much.

It’s not the first time she’s had that thought, but she’s still never said it out loud. Because she knows that when someone says _it’s too much_ , it’s all too easy to hear, _you’re not enough_.)

Betty reaches across the blanket to gather their empty plates. “Okay. Let’s go. But we should come back in time for dinner. And if anyone asks –”

“We were having a therapy session,” he finishes. His expression hovers on the edge of a smile, as though he’s daring her to laugh.

Betty rolls her eyes. “Don’t call it that.”

He raises an eyebrow, and she can’t help but give in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(At first, the fake therapist had just been an escape tactic.

Want to go strawberry picking at the Farm, Betty? _Can’t – I’ve got my therapy appointment today._

Edgar’s coming for dinner – _Oh, sorry, Dr. Glass had to reschedule for an evening session, so I’ll just grab something at Pop’s after._

Of course, she still had to _go_ somewhere whenever she claimed she was seeing Dr. Glass, and that somewhere was usually wherever Jughead was. Her weekly appointment just so happened to coincide with one of FP’s regularly scheduled shifts at the diner.

Jughead had asked her only once if she thought she might want to try finding an actual therapist. “As much as I’m enjoying this,” he’d said, flexing his fingers on her waist, “I may not be fully qualified for this position.”

“Of course you are. You make me feel _good_ , Jug,” she’d told him, and ended the conversation with her tongue in his mouth.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The trailer is only a few minutes’ walk from camp; Betty can still hear the low, thumping bassline of the music behind them when she steps through the door.

“It’s a little messy,” Jughead says, grabbing an empty coffee mug from the little kitchen table and depositing it in the sink. She’s pleased to see that the little blue vase she’d brought over a few weeks ago is still on the table, a bunch of yellow flowers sticking out from its neck.

“It’s fine, Juggie.” She slips off her shoes and hangs her bag on the hook by the door. Jughead comes up behind her, one hand slipping into the back pocket of her overalls, squeezing the curve of her rear. His lips brush the back of her neck, sending a shiver down her spine.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” he murmurs. “Or…”

“No,” Betty smiles, reaching one hand up behind her to run through his hair.

“What about…did you do our summer reading yet?”

She giggles. “Juggie, no.” She leans back against him as his arm snakes around her middle.

“Well, what _do_ you wanna do?”

She turns in his arms, biting her lower lip between her front teeth when she feels him press up against her belly. “I want you to fuck me.”

He kisses her, slow at first and then rougher, and she moans into his mouth as his hands slide up her sides, slipping beneath the tight white t-shirt she has on under her denim overalls. “You look so good in these,” he says, resting his forehead against hers as she catches her breath.

“Let’s go to bed,” she says. She grabs his hands and pulls him after her, walking backwards; she knows exactly how many steps to take to reach his room, exactly where to turn the doorknob, exactly how far to go before she can sink down onto the bed and pull him over her, all without looking.

Betty steps out of her overalls, tugs off her top, and lays back on the mattress, but instead of Jughead’s warm, familiar weight settling over her, she feels his fingers wrap around her calves just before she’s jerked forward to the very edge of the bed. She shrieks in delight. “Juggie, what –”

“Hang on,” he says, and then he’s down on his knees, he’s pulling her underwear down over _her_ knees and pushing her legs apart and running his hands up her thighs and then oh, _fuck,_ his _mouth –_

Betty cries out as his tongue finds her, twisting her fingers through his hair. It’s too good, too _much_. She can’t stop herself from rocking against him, pressing her legs against his shoulders, heels on his back.

“Betts, stop – I can’t when you’re moving –” She feels his breath hot against her as he laughs, and then his hands are on her hips, pinning her down to the mattress while his mouth does things that make her toes curl.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She comes once like that, and then again later, splayed out on the bed as he moves inside her. She finishes first, back bowing off the mattress, and then he follows, burying his face in her neck. They lay together for a moment, Betty struggling to catch her breath, until she nudges him off of her and sucks in a lungful of air.

“Sorry,” he murmurs.

The way he’s looking at her, with his messy hair and heavy-lidded eyes, almost makes her want to climb on top of him and start all over again.

Betty pushes a lock of dark hair off of his forehead. “S’okay.”

He smiles in response, and she feels a sudden rush of affection. She loves how sleepy and soft sex makes him, how quickly the tension drains from his limbs after release.

She slips from the bed and across the hall into the little bathroom to clean herself up, and when she returns his eyes are shut, his chest rising and falling in the slow rhythm of sleep.

Though she tries, there’s little she can do to muffle the sound of creaky springs when she climbs back into bed. Jughead rolls over immediately anyway, surprising her, wrapping his arms around her middle as he presses his face against her chest.

“I love you, Betty Cooper,” he mumbles into her skin.

Betty feels like her heart is literally glowing beneath her ribcage. “I love you too.”

“Thank you for not being stupid,” he adds, resting his chin between her breasts as he looks up at her, “and wanting to sell drugs.”

She laughs. “You’re welcome.”

He pulls back, resting his head on the pillow next to hers, leaving one arm slung over her waist. His eyes move over her face slowly. Somehow she feels more naked than she did five minutes ago, spread out beneath him.

Betty wrinkles her nose. “What?”

“It seems so crazy,” he admits quietly, “that some people just…do this with complete strangers. You know?”

She knows.

Before _,_ she’d thought she’d known what it was to be vulnerable. To put herself on display for Cheryl Blossom, pom poms in hand, and await her judgment.

To rip her heart out of her chest and hold it in her hands, raw and bleeding, hoping Archie would take it in his own.

To show her scarred, aching palms to Jughead and pray that he wouldn’t turn away.

Only Jughead had passed that test – had taken what she had to give, as chipped and fragile as that might be, and treated it like something whole and precious. That’s why he’s the only one she trusts to see her like this. Will _ever_ trust to see her like this: stripped bare, open, wanting. Needing.

Taking.

“I know,” she tells him. She places her hand on his cheek, and he closes his eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They laze in bed for what might be hours. Jughead retrieves a bag of potato chips from the kitchen, and Betty insists he make a second trip for napkins before they eat them: _do you really want to sleep in a bunch of crumbs, Jug?_

He tells her more about his conflict with Sweet Pea – it is, unsurprisingly, about more than just drugs – and she gets him caught up on the preparations for Archie’s case. The trial starts in two weeks, but Mrs. Andrews and Mrs. McCoy are still debating which one of them should give the opening argument.

“McCoy, for sure,” Jughead says, crunching loudly on a chip. “Archie’s mom is a softie.”

Betty bristles. He wouldn’t say that, she thinks, if he’d been there to see it all firsthand this summer: Mary’s bright red head of hair already bent over her desk when Betty arrived in the office each morning, and still there when Betty left each evening. The hardness in her eyes, in the straight line of her back, in the firm set of her jaw.

Archie’s mom might be a softie, but Mary Andrews, attorney at law, was anything but.

“A jury might go for that,” Betty points out. “A mother’s love, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Maybe.” Jughead shakes his head as he reaches for another chip. “It’s pretty fucked up that our pillow talk is, like, ‘should my best friend’s mother defend him in his _murder trial_?’”

That, she can’t argue with. Betty takes a chip and chews on it slowly, thoughtfully, swallowing before she asks,

“Do you ever think about what it would be like now if Jason hadn’t been murdered?”

He’s quiet for long enough that she knows that no matter what he says next, the answer is _yes._

“It’s crossed my mind.” Jughead shifts onto his back, lifting his eyes towards the ceiling. “Do you?”

“Sometimes.”

“Whether or not we’d be together.” His voice is flat when he says it, the tone he uses to project indifference. Betty knows better.

“Not _just_ that.” She turns onto her side, facing him. “It’s like…what if him and Polly really did run away? Maybe I’d be going out of my mind trying to find her right now.”

His jaw twitches, so subtle she almost doesn’t catch it. “Maybe my dad would’ve gotten his shit together. Maybe I’d be living in Toledo.”

Betty wriggles closer, resting her hand on his chest. “I don’t like that one.” She watches him for a few moments in silence. “I think we’d be together,” she tells him quietly. “We’re too good together to go our whole lives never knowing it.”

His hand finds hers where it lays over his sternum, and he plays idly with her fingers. “We were barely even friends anymore.”

“That’s not true.”

He lifts his head to look at her skeptically. “You didn’t even talk to me all summer.”

“You didn’t talk to me, either. The phone works both ways, you know.” She bops him on the nose, so he knows she’s not actually upset about it. The look on his face as he tries not to smile is so cute she has to lean forward and follow it up with a kiss. Betty traces his jawline with her finger as she pulls away. “I always knew you were smart. And kind, and funny…”

Jughead rolls his eyes, but it’s impossible to miss the flush turning the tips of his ears red. “Smart _and_ funny? You’re going to give me a complex.”

“And _handsome_ …” Betty leans in closer, murmuring the word in his ear.

“Handsome? Now you’re just describing a horse.”

“Well, I always wanted a pony.”

Jughead laughs, and she grins, slipping her hand across his chest to rest against his neck. He pulls back a little, rolling onto his side so they’re face to face, and cups her cheek with one hand.

“I didn’t know,” he says, voice suddenly low, serious. “I thought I did. I thought I knew _you_ , how smart and strong and brave you are…” He shakes his head slightly. “I had no idea.”

“Jug,” she whispers.

She kisses him before he can get another word out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time she’s recovered from her third orgasm of the day, the clock on Jughead’s bedside table says it’s a little past six in the evening, and well past time to emerge from their cocoon.

“Jug, can you grab my phone out of my bag?” Betty calls to him from where she sits on the bed as he moves about the kitchen, putting their empty glasses in the sink. She pulls her underwear back on, then her shirt.

“Sure.”

She’s leaning over the edge of the bed on her stomach, one arm stretched out towards her overalls, when he appears in the doorway.

“What’s this?”

The pills rattle against the plastic as Jughead lifts up the little orange bottle she’d forgotten was in her purse.

Shit. _Shit, shit, shit._

Betty’s mouth feels instantly dry, like it’s been stuffed with cotton balls. “What…is it?” she repeats. 

He leans against the doorframe, his forehead creased with concern. “Yeah.”

She swallows. “It’s Adderall.”

“Right, I know.” He tilts the label towards her so she can see, too, as though she might not remember what’s printed there. “Prescribed to you by a doctor I’m pretty sure you made up.” Jughead looks at her pointedly. “You did make him up, right?”

She nods, grateful that right now she can dig her fingernails into Jughead’s soft, worn comforter instead of her own skin. “Yes.”

“And so you got these…?”

“I bought a blank prescription from Reggie,” she sighs.

She’d seen him sell a prescription pad to Nick St. Clair during the party last year where everyone had taken jingle jangle except for her. At the beginning of summer, he’d been more than happy to sell her a single sheet at a “friends and family” discount.

Jughead looks at her in disbelief. “ _Reggie_ knows?”

“I didn’t tell him what it was for.”

Reggie had come to his own conclusion, anyway – _too scared to go to Planned Parenthood, Coop? It’s alright, I gotchu_ – and she hadn’t bothered to correct him.

“Betty.” Jughead seems to be choosing his words with even more care than usual. “You could go to jail for something like this.”

_Like Archie_ , she finishes in her head.

She lets out a shaky breath. “I know.”

Jughead steps forward and hands her the bottle before easing himself down to kneel on the ground before her. His hand comes to rest on her ankle, thumb rubbing gently against the bone. “Why do you need Adderall?”

Betty looks down at the bottle in her hand, and then sets it aside. “It’s just, like…to keep me focused, and awake. I used to take them every day in ninth grade. So I – I know the dosage, and the side effects – there aren’t many,” she adds quickly when he looks up at her in alarm.

She wraps her arms around her middle, and shrugs. “I was having trouble sleeping because I was so _worried_ about Archie, and then I’d just be a zombie at work all day, and then I’d worry _more_ because I wasn’t doing a good job because I was so tired…”

The truth is, she’s still not sleeping. But if she’s not going to sleep anyway – at least the pills can keep her functional, _productive_ , in the meantime.

“It’s not forever,” she insists. “It’s just to get through this. If I can get through this – if we can get Archie through this…”

_Then what_ , she isn’t sure. She hasn’t slowed down enough to think that far ahead.

When she looks back at Jughead, he’s studying her, like she’s a puzzle to be solved. Once, a look like that would have sent her heart racing. Now it just makes her chest ache.

Now, she just wants to be _known._

“Okay,” he says, after a pause that feels like it had stretched on for days.

“Okay?” she repeats.

“I trust you.” Jughead gives her ankle a quick squeeze, and then stands, holding his hands out to her. She takes them, letting him lift her onto her feet, wrapping her arms around his neck as he pulls her in for a hug.

“If this is what you think you need, then I trust you.” He murmurs the words against her neck.

Betty isn’t sure what to say. _Okay; thank you; I love you;_ they all feel wrong.

So she says nothing at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They try to slip back to the camp unnoticed. The crowd seems a little smaller than before, but more condensed, chairs pulled into a haphazard circle around the firepit, which is already lit even though the sun is only just beginning to drop in the sky. The party vibe has died down, Betty notes, presumably drained by the combined effect of the heat and the alcohol.

At the center of it all is Jughead’s father.

(That’s something she’s noticed these past few months: that despite announcing his “retirement”, and relinquishing his responsibilities to Jughead, FP is still there. At every meeting, every gathering – always there.)

FP spots them almost immediately, as though he’s been waiting for their return. He raises a bottle and leans forward in his lawn chair.

“There’s my boy.” His voice is louder than it needs to be, and Betty’s stomach sinks. She takes Jughead’s hand, squeezing it tightly.

“And his girl,” he adds, settling back as they approach hand-in-hand.

“Hi, Mr. Jones,” she says softly.

“You get your private time, Jug?” FP raises his eyebrows meaningfully.

Though she’s nowhere near the fire, Betty feels like her face is burning. Jughead stiffens beside her. “If you wanna go pass out, it’s all yours,” he says, waving a hand in the general direction of the trailer.

“Mm.” FP shakes his head. “I’m stayin’ right here. With my boys. My _Serpents._ ”

Jughead starts to say something in reply, but stops himself. “Great. Have a good time.” And then he drops Betty’s hand, and stalks away in the direction of town, away from the party.

She jogs after him. “Juggie. _Jug._ ”

He pauses for only a moment, to let her catch up, and then continues to walk at a brisk pace. “Can we – can we go somewhere else?” he asks, and in his voice she hears the slightest waver, barely there but more than enough to break her heart. “I just – I don’t want to be here.”

“Of course we can,” she tells him, pressing her hand against the small of his back.

And that’s how they end up at Pop’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Archie’s sitting in their favorite booth when Betty and Jughead arrive, his long legs stretched out along the seat, feet poking out past the end of the table. He looks up from his phone as they walk through the doorway, and does a double take.

“I was just about to call you guys! Ronnie’s done her shift in a half hour.”

Jughead slides into the other side of the booth first, rapping his knuckles against the tabletop. “We realized we couldn’t celebrate America’s birthday without eating the best damn burger in the whole country.”

Betty slides in next to him, giving his thigh a quick squeeze beneath the table. Their walk to the diner had been mostly quiet, Jughead seemingly lost in his own thoughts, and she hadn’t pushed him to talk about it just yet. _Later_ , she thinks, when the memory of FP’s sloppy grin isn’t quite as fresh.

She pulls her hand back into her own lap, but Jughead bumps his knee against hers in acknowledgment. “Plus we just kinda missed you guys,” she adds with a smile.

“Aww.” Veronica appears from the kitchen, a basket of onion rings already in hand. “These are on the house, and two of the best damn burgers in the whole _world_ are on the way.”

Jughead smiles for the first time since he’d left the trailer with Betty. “Touché.”

When Veronica brings their food a few minutes later, she slips into the booth beside Archie, curling up against his side as she watches them eat. “I’m really glad you guys came,” she admits. “I’m so exhausted I don’t know if I would’ve made it across town.”

“I’d’ve carried you,” Archie says, sounding almost affronted, and Veronica stretches up to give him a peck on the lips.

“Of course you would.”

“Gross,” Jughead mumbles through a mouthful of burger. Betty giggles.

They stay in the booth until it’s dark out, at which point Veronica ushers them outside to watch the fireworks from Archie’s old jalopy in the parking lot. As Betty climbs into the backseat, something about the motion shakes loose an old memory.

Piling into the station wagon, butterfly clips in her hair, skin sticky with bug spray. Her father had driven them all up to Pickens Point to watch the fireworks one year – Dad, Mom, Polly, Betty. She was six or seven years old; she remembers squirming in the backseat with worry, tugging uncomfortably at her seatbelt, asking again and again if they were going to miss the fireworks.

Hal had parked further into the woods than they were supposed to, away from the other cars. He’d helped their mother scoot onto the hood, and then lifted Polly and Betty up onto the roof. For a few minutes they’d fought silently over the “best spot” – pushing, pinching, slapping at the occasional mosquito – and then both fell still when the sky burst into colors.

It was the first and last time the Cooper family ever watched the fireworks from Pickens Point. Alice had found a tick on Polly’s scalp while tucking her into bed that night, and an hour later Betty had drifted off to sleep to the sound of her parents’ hushed, tight voices as they argued in the kitchen downstairs.

But up until that point, it had been a good night. Sitting on the roof of the car beside her sister in the warm air – out past their bedtimes, which _never_ happened – she’d felt simply, unreservedly _happy._

A tear drips down her cheek, wholly unexpected. Betty wipes it away with the back of her hand.

“I know it’s not exactly the rooftop of the Pembrooke,” Veronica says as they’re waiting for the display to begin. She sounds – embarrassed, almost. Betty leans forward from the back seat, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“It’s better, V,” she says softly.

And it really is, she thinks, as the first firework lights up the sky. Better than that night at Pickens Point, which feels distorted the way that all of her childhood memories do now, like she’s watching them through a shattered screen. Better than a year ago, alone and tipsy and hundreds of miles away, calling and texting and waiting for a reply that never came.

Because unlike a year ago, she knows Veronica now – this clever girl who’s slipped into their lives like she’s always belonged there, whose heart is so much bigger than any of them could have imagined that first night when she walked into Pop’s.

Unlike a year ago, she understands Archie. That despite his wide grin and his bright eyes and his easy laugh, he’s just as scared as the rest of them – but better, maybe, at making himself confront it.

Unlike a year ago, she loves Jughead. All of him: his eyes and his smile and his laugh, his mind and his voice and his hands, his bad moods, his good intentions.

Unlike a year ago, she is where she feels safest. She can’t predict the future – never could – but she knows what she is capable of. She knows that whatever it is she has to face, tomorrow or next week or next _year,_ the three people surrounding her now will face it with her.

Betty tips her head back, and watches sparks fill the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> some notes:
> 
> \- I first started writing this after 3x01 aired because I thought Jughead's non-reaction to Betty's admission about her fake therapy / Adderall was a little strange. It implied to me that he already knew about them, and I wanted to explore that a bit - how'd he find out? Why was he okay with it? Then this kind of turned into a "day in the life" type of thing and that wasn't as much the focal point anymore. But I hope that his reaction to the discovery of her pills at least feels genuine and believable. 
> 
> \- Betty is 100% wearing her adorable overalls outfit from the episode, when she's working on the car with Archie and Fred.
> 
> \- The title is from "Always Remember Us This Way", my fav song from the _A Star is Born_ soundtrack.
> 
> \- So many thanks to the fabulous stillscape for beta reading this for me! <3
> 
> \- I really truly hope that if you read this and enjoyed it, you'll leave a comment. It means so much to me to hear from readers!
> 
> \- Come say hi on tumblr if you'd like, I'm at imreallyloveleee :)


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